SS-AR1 Loudspeaker

by Sony
in Speakers

Like a priceless piano, the SS-AR1 Loudspeaker is chiefly crafted out of wood. The wood for the baffle board comes from Japan's island of Hokkaido where winters are extremely cold, a condition reflected in the tight grain, hardness and rigidity of the indigenous maple. The trees are hand-selected with the assistance of local wood specialists and felled in November, when their growth slows and the grain is at its tightest.

However, building the entire enclosure from a single type of wood can result in an excessively rigid and hard sound. For this reason Sony selected another, somewhat softer cold-climate wood, Finnish birch, for the speaker's side and rear panels.

This unique choice of woods insures exceptional freedom from unwanted vibrations, as well as a natural, balanced, musically expressive tone.

The dimensions of a speaker cabinet are rarely perfect. For easier assembly, designers typically make a slight allowance for error and can leave loose joints resulting in an acceptable if ever-so slightly imperfect cabinet.

For the SS-AR1, Sony demanded nothing less than the highest possible accuracy in woodworking. Their engineers reached out to a cabinet-making company that provides precision components for musical instruments and asked them to build a prototype. The prototype was so precise that all of the pieces held tightly together without any glue at all.

In addition to meticulous accuracy, this cabinetmaker is also responsible for the SS-AR1's exquisite piano finish. But you'd expect no less from craftsmen who help build grand pianos.

The SS-AR1 utilizes a unique design that helps to control resonance and maintain a balanced, natural sound. What appears from the outside to be a single enclosure is actually divided inside by two thick pieces of birch separated by an air cavity. This creates two separate enclosures: one for the woofers and one for the midrange/tweeter.

Each sub-enclosure is also vented with a bass reflex port that's been carefully tuned and positioned to mitigate distortion and coloration.

From your listening chair, you can't see any of these extraordinary measures. But you can certainly hear them.

Fabricating precision drivers for the SS-AR1 required particular expertise. So the Sony team reached out to a transducer specialist in Scandinavia. Working in close collaboration, they produced a four-unit/three-way system that exceeded our high expectations.

The twin 200 mm aluminum woofers are remarkably strong, with a robust magnetic circuit. A copper ring optimizes the symmetry of the magnetic field, reducing distortion.

The 130 mm midrange driver incorporates an exclusive sliced paper cone. The material is deliberately cut and re-adhered to suppress resonance and realize flat response.

The 25 mm soft dome tweeter includes a special back chamber, which smoothes out the air pressure behind the diaphragm and around the magnetic circuit. Six neodymium magnets arranged concentrically also produce high flux density in minimal space.

All of this results in a more realistic soundfield, helping music achieve an almost life-like presence.